Leaf work
No leaf blowers for me, thank you very much. I’m old school. I use a rake. It is silent. It affords marvellous exercise to the wielder. It is satisfying.
I keep mine propped up against the mulberry tree in the courtyard. It’s a daily event getting the leaves collected right now.
But what a stunning yellow. This amazing autumn continues with blazing skies of blue and all the trees glowing. Or dropping leaves like yellow and red confetti all over the lawns.
I am collecting all the leaves and tamping them down hard on the small bed below the potting shed. It was the soft fruit extensions – but I have uprooted most of them and given them to Paul and Alice. But three red currants remain. And they are now lapped by a thick blanket of mulberry leaves. Dying quietly.
I do nothing to our other magnificent mulberry. It draws the eye. I suspect I photograph it every day when I am working outdoors.
And today I had my trusty steed back – the mower. So I decided to do a long session of mowing. As well as raking.
I raked all these walnut leaves off the beds and the walnut path first thing this morning.
They are tough leathery brutes. I suspect it will take them a few years to break down in the state they are now. So I am afraid that all my boasting about eschewing noisy machines to remove my leaves is a whopper.
And chopped them into brilliant bits and I will put them back on the hornbeam hedge (now weeded and bulbed) to rot down.
And I mowed the lawns at the same time.
So it was deeply satisfying.
I spent quite a bit of time mowing down the edges of our little road. Stopping every few minutes to empty the grass catcher. Or in this instance, the leaf catcher. I had some mighty piles, believe me.
But it’s all for a good cause. I want to thickly mulch the asparagus bed with this grass and leaf litter mix. And the hedge.
But I’ve only weeded the hornbeam hedge to within a blade of unwanted grass.
I have yanked out half the fast annual weed growth under the main hedge, but I wanted to spend the time behind the mower more than sitting on my kneeling pad pulling out weeds.
I’ve bagged up most of the raked leaves and the grass. And all I need to do now is find about five spare hours in the day to do all the work I want.
I have still more mowing to do on the first terrace below the road. I had to stop because I need to repair all the wild boar damage before I try and mow over it.
And the ground is just that little bit damp at the far end of the terrace to make mowing a pleasure. The blades keep getting clogged.
And the last thing I want to do is have to send the mower back to the shop for repairs. So it will go on the burgeoning To Do list.